


Strength to Protect

by Llama1412



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: Arthur makes his own decisions about magic. Maybe it isn't inherently evil.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 26





	Strength to Protect

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal in 2010. Posted unedited.

The Great Purges had begun just after Arthur's birth. No one would tell him why they began exactly, only that it had something to do with his mother's death. They never referred to it as his birth, but he knew that the two were directly related. Still, he'd managed to get one of his nurses to tell him that the Purges had begun as soon as Uther had picked him self up from the crippling part of his grief. Not that he'd stopped grieving her then, mind you. Arthur could tell that his father had _never_ stopped grieving his mother. He still felt guilty about that, even if he'd never admit it to anyone. Mostly he'd never tell because that would mean revealing a weakness, which was unacceptable, but part of him also feared that his father should hear of it and reveal that he wished Arthur had never been born. Arthur didn't think he could handle that.

Still, during the Purges, he was too young to truly understand what they meant and afterwards, no one dared speak of them in anything but appreciative remarks that Uther had rid the kingdom of a very real threat.

It wasn't until his ninth year that he learned just what that threat was. It seemed kind of pathetic when put like that, but his father was very careful about what rumors he allowed to fly around the castle. He couldn't stop all the gossip, but anyone that Arthur trusted enough to reveal that he had no clue what everyone was talking about was too intelligent to speak out of turn and risk the executioner's block.

The only reason he finally learned anything about magic at all was actually because of his father's greatest accomplishment during the Purge: the Great Dragon. He'd discovered the dragon by chance while exploring the castle and hiding from his nurses and somewhere between the realizations of _holy fuck, dragon!_ and _yikes, pointy teeth_ , the dragon had revealed to him the story of its imprisonment – greatly edited to suit a child's ears, of course – and Uther's war against magic.

Truthfully, it had taken him several days to digest this as a large part of his mind was still stuck on the dragon bit, but once he'd comprehended it, he'd been forced to make a decision.

His father hated magic and even the implication of its use meant certain death. Arthur thought this was a bit unfair, but his father was right about everything so obviously he was right about the evils of magic.

Except he wasn't. He wanted to put Arthur's favorite nurse to death. He said she had magic, that she'd been caught red-handed. Arthur wasn't allowed to see her – the king had ordered that he be kept away so that she had no chance to put him under her spell (ignoring the fact that she could've easily already done that but hadn't) – but he knew her. She was always mindful of him and wasn't afraid to raise her voice at him when he was throwing a tantrum and yeah, he kind of hated her for it, but she always stroked his hair afterwards as he was falling asleep and that was better than if he'd whined to one of the other nurses and gotten what he'd been unreasonably demanding.

She always humored him when he wanted to be told stories about forest animals rather than the brave conquests of his father. She always held him close on his birthday and gave him a little gift – simple, but thoughtful – when the rest of the castle stayed out of his father's way and mourned their Queen. More than that, he knew that there was no way she was anything but good and if she really did have magic, then magic couldn't be all evil, could it?

But that would mean his father was wrong. How could that be? He was King, he had to be right.

But he wasn't, not about his nurse and maybe, not about magic either.

So it was that in his ninth year, Arthur truly defied his father for the first time and broke his nurse out of the dungeons. It had been distressingly easy considering she was seen to be a huge threat, but he hoped that was simply because he was small enough to duck under their radar.

He'd ushered his nurse out of the castle's walls and begged her to run away to safety. Crouched in a shadowed outcropping of the castle walls, she had smiled at him, kissed him on the forehead, and given him a pendant that she had worn around her neck. Arthur had stared after her in a mixture of sadness, relief, and fear as he realized just what it was he had done. He'd defied his father and lost one of the only people he'd really come to care about.

In a state of shock, he'd wandered into the Physician's quarters and let himself be comforted by the kind old man his father trusted. But he didn't speak a word of what he'd done, of how he'd acted against his father. Gaius was close to Uther and while Arthur trusted him, mostly, that didn't mean he wouldn't tell Uther that his son had broken the law. And while Arthur feared that almost more than anything, he found that it was more important to him now that nurse be able to safely leave Camelot. After all, his father probably wouldn't execute him. He hoped. Still, better not to risk it and the best way for someone to keep his secret was for them to never know they had it. So he'd let Gaius comfort him about the loss of his nurse as he waited for the news of her escape.

After that, while he was eager to follow in his father's footsteps and become a great king, every time some innocent was put to death, Arthur felt the weight of the red stone around his neck and prayed that sorcerers learned to use more caution, that they learned to either hide themselves well or get the hell out of Camelot.

He never risked breaking another person out of jail, though. He couldn't. He was too afraid of what he father might do both if he caught him and to future prisoners to ensure they wouldn't be able to escape.

Then Merlin entered his life. Merlin, who so obviously used magic it was a miracle no one else had seen it. Merlin, who came off as such an idiot that everyone overlooked him, even when he did something as stupid as tripping an advancing bandit or dropping a heavy branch on top of a carnivorous lizard mutant that tried to eat Arthur's leg.

It was because of Merlin that he started truly acting against his father. Before, he'd been too afraid to protect those wrongfully accused of magic. But now, his fear could mean Merlin's death and so he fought it down and shoved it aside. With Merlin and Morgana's help, he freed that druid boy, Mordred. If only he'd known that that was only the start. He wouldn't change things, though, even then. He was tired of standing by and allowing people to suffer. It was one thing when a sorcerer did something truly evil. Then, they were a powerful threat that used tools he didn't have against his people. But aside from those tools, they were no different than ordinary criminals. Arthur understood that where his father did not. Magic was not evil simply because some chose to use it for such. Those individuals deserved to be executed. Others did not. Merlin did not.

And he wouldn't let him.


End file.
